This week sees the fourth of five visits made by groups of the University’s law students to St. Peter’s Primary School\u00a0in Market Bosworth, as part of a Higher Education Academy funded project that seeks to engage law students in ‘developing legal literacy’ with children aged 7 to 11.\u00a0 At the beginning of the academic year, students\u00a0received training from\u00a0citizenship education experts Don Rowe and Tony Thorpe, from\u00a0professional story-teller Alison Davies, and from Ralph Wood, the Head teacher of St. Peter’s and a\u00a0Leicester University Law graduate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Students then worked independently to create five workshops for school, each designed to help children to learn more about law and about their legal standing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The students’ first visit was designed around the theme of\u00a0animal rights, a topic that many of the children can closely associate with.\u00a0 They learned too\u00a0about the Dangerous Dogs Act (assisted by\u00a0the much-acclaimed\u00a0performance by our project co-ordinator Dr Maribel Canto-Lopez, playing the role of the dog).\u00a0 Next the children\u00a0learned more about their own rights as citizens and also\u00a0more specifically about their rights as\u00a0children, under the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.\u00a0 In workshop three,\u00a0children\u00a0learned about defamation and\u00a0acted out various scenarios, before considering whether these might\u00a0amount to libel or slander. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Next up is negligence, looking especially at what it means to\u00a0be owed\u00a0a ‘duty of care’.\u00a0 We will finish the visits with\u00a0the mock trial of Goldilocks; where children will learn about the roles and responsibilities of trial participants; what the age of criminal responsibility is, and that ignorance of the law is no defence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project has been very\u00a0much ‘student led’.\u00a0\u00a0Students determined the areas that they wanted to cover with the children and designed their workshops independently.\u00a0 And at a relatively early stage,\u00a0they\u00a0replaced the rather long-winded title of the project from ‘Developing legal literacy with children in Key Stage 2’\u00a0with its new title; ‘the Leicester Legal Eagles project’.\u00a0\u00a0Calling upon favours from family and friends (thank you Kirsty’s sister), they\u00a0have even adopted their own logo.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the\u00a0aims of the project is to develop some materials that can be further developed and used in a wider number of schools in the future – particularly schools targeted by the University as part of its widening participation strategy.\u00a0 With a great deal of energy and commitment, our law students have created some very firm foundations for the future development of this project.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
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